Billy Dong
Aquatic Centre Summary
Aquatic centres are beloved by Australians, but they are notorious for being high energy and water consumers to the extent that they often lose money and result in a large carbon footprint.
My aquatic centre sits in the St Kilda Triangle, adjacent to the foreshore, which was a view that was essential to retain for the current residents. So I designed a landscape building that could be traversable between the main roads via meandering paths, as well as providing public plaza areas, which still retain views to the foreshore.
Green energy will be supplied using solar panels at a surplus. This will also be used to power the key piece of machinery – the heat pump, which is a very efficient piece of machinery for distributing heating and cooling throughout the site. The heat pump can extract the residual heat produced by other programmes on site and direct it back to the aquatic centre.
The use of corrosion resistant materials is also important, with a concentration on carbon sequestering materials including Glulam timber for structural components as well as Cabot LumiraTM aerogel coated polycarbonate that is highly insulating as well as SolidiaTM, concrete that cures with carbon rather than water.
